"Reverse" Sexism

First of all, I would just like to say that "reverse" forms of oppression are BULLLLLLLSHIIIIIITTTTT. Oppression is prolonged, cruel and unjust treatment of ANY group of people. So you LITERALLY cannot reverse it. The reverse of oppression is freedom or something of the like.

Secondly, I saw on Facebook last night that a female had written a sexist status about men. It sparked 148 comments worth of debate and was a very intense thing to wake up to this morning, but I managed to scroll through before going to a lecture (on another male author, but that's an entirely different matter, which WILL be explained eventually).
Anyway, I just wanted to express my thoughts on "reversing" sexism or 'putting the shoe on the other foot' so it were.

A friend of mine agreed with the girl's status, saying that men had no reason to throw a tantrum about it because women have experienced more discrimination than them. And this is exactly what bothers me about some feminists*. I know that feminism is about the advocacy of women's rights to achieve gender equality but I am starting to realise that I associate myself with the latter half. Whilst it frustrates me that women are constantly discriminated against every day, all over the world, I DO have sympathy for men who experience sexism and gender-based stereotypes. I also CANNOT and WILL NOT condone 'giving them a taste of their own medicine' to strengthen my argument or the movement I am a part of.
EVERYONE has the right to feel offended to discriminatory comments, regardless of your gender/race/sexuality or whether you have a disability or not. I honestly cannot believe that some people think that just because men have been on the beneficial side of patriarchy for God knows how long, that that automatically means they cannot feel offended when a sexist comment is aimed at them.
That's like saying a white person cannot be offended by a racist comment that came from a black person, because of what our ancestors did. Or because people you don't even know or are related to (but are of the same gender/race etc. as us) systematically discriminated against a group of people in the past, you have no right to feel offended when someone discriminates you, whether its systematically or a one-off. I hope that putting into that perspective helps you understand my point. If not, carry on. I cannot tell anyone how to feel or behave, but I just want everyone to know that they have the right to stand up to someone if they do not agree with what they're saying and it should not be in fear of accusing them of 'reverse' forms of oppression which is a fallacy, in my opinion.

Oppression is oppression and instead of 'reversing' it, why don't we just work to obliterating it?


*(and I'm sure I'll get people telling me that I can't tell other feminists what to do so just want to clarify that that is NOT what I'm doing. I'm just defining myself as a feminist and expressing disagreement with others because it's a right that I intend to use for literally everything).

Language and Women

Cunt.

Did that make you wince? Was that the worst word I could have possibly used? Did I offend you?

Well, the fact that one of the 'most offensive' words is synonym for vagina is really offensive to me too. Who gave cunt the power it has today? Because if I screamed VAGINA at home, I'd probably get a few odd looks, but if I screamed CUNT at the top of my lungs, I'd be grounded for a week for "obscene language" or something of the sort.

Seriously though, I'll say it again, who gave it the power to make people wince? It's a word!

Why a female body part? Why can 'dick' be thrown around? Why does calling a girl a 'bitch' suggest she's bossy or rude and then calling a boy a 'bitch' suggests he is feminine and/or gay? Why are most of today's swear words derived from female body parts?

Same with pussy. Why is it the WORST THING EVAAAA(!!!!) to call a boy a pussy? How did it get to be a synonym of coward? Why were men who did not want to fight in either World Wars called cowards? Where is there courage in killing people for an unknown cause, especially in regards to the First World War (1914-1918)?

So, I was then thinking that, to MY OWN PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE (I don't want to offend and please correct me if I'm wrong), no white male has ever been labelled courageous for doing anything other than killing other people, presumably in battle.

The courageous people who fought for the rights of oppressed groups such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her three daughters, Martin Luther King etc only became courageous AFTER the battle was won.

At the time they were crazy, militant, violent, outspoken, enemies of the state. But after what they were fighting for was achieved, whether it was in their lifetime or not, we look back on history and pick them out as inspirational people, key figures, heroes to their causes. 

Why does their victory validate their influence? 

#ReadingWomen

Yesterday was Interntional Women's Day! YAAAAY! A whole day just for us women! What an achievement! Emmeline Pankhurst would have loved this! This is what we're fighting for!

If we're only allowed 24 hours to freely (and sometimes not even then) express the achievements of the fantastic women and men who have paved the way for women's rights, then we still have a long way to go, kids. 

Tonight, there were speeches from Madeline Davies, Grace Ioppolo and Karin Lesnik-Oberstein for the IWD debate held at the University, and these are the people you need gunning the way for women. We laughed, we gasped, we shared stories and, most importantly, we used our voices. 

Grace Ioppolo, who is my American Literature seminar leader, called herself a 'trouble maker' - initially because the people around her did. But YAY for trouble makers. YAY for people who stand up and call people out on their misogynistic bullshit (And we should do that for homophobic and racist bullshit too). These people are the ones who get stuff done. We need more trouble makers.

A fantastic example on calling someone out is the Lebanese TV Presenter Cuts Interview Short with Islamic Scholar . She was doing her job, he reduced her to her gender, she wasn't taking it.
This is what we need to see in the world, not just in the Middle East but in every single country on this planet. Inequality is a hindrance and countries will not progress without it. Iceland LITERALLY COULD NOT COPE in 1975 when 90% of it's female population just said "nope" - here's the link to a great article.

The idea of 'bossiness' wasn't something that came up in the debate today but its one I've been thinking about for a while. Why are girls called bossy when they dictate situations or ask for things or tell the people around them what they want from them? This isn't the case with boys, as far as I am aware. They show "leadership skills". Well, fuuuuuccckkkkkk you, women can be leaders. WOMEN ARE LEADERS. Harvard University has a female President, Germany has a female Chancellor, Brazil has a female President, Argentina has a female President, there's a female Administrator in the U.N Development Programme. And do you know what the worst thing about this list is? "Female". 

Drew Giplin Faust is THE President of Harvard University, she is not the FEMALE President of Harvard University because using her gender in her title suggests, to me, that there is a male President too. Which there isn't. Because Faust can bloody well do it on her own.

Other points raised were the issue of the 'Western Feminist' -  this doesn't include women from the Middle East or Africa. So does it include women of colour? Transgender women? Irish women, who, even though they are geographically in the West, don't even have access to abortion? Feminism is about equal rights for women and that should include women from all walks of life. It's not about us against them, its about us being HEARD by them. We'll always be different, sure, but women are all equal in being unequal.

A fabulous point Maddie raised was how subtle sexism is now. Call it out. Make people embarrassed by their comments. Even if they didn't mean it and when they say "man up" or "don't be such a girl" that they DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!!?!?!?!?!??!?!!??!?!?!!?!??! Whatever their intention, those phrases should not be thrown around. They carry messages: act your gender/do what the other people of your gender do. Your calling them out may very well be the education they need to stop saying things like that, to stand up for women's rights or any rights of an oppressed group. Your calling them out is just as significant in the fight for gender equality as it is knocking on David Cameron's door demanding equal pay. Baby steps are still steps.

Another thing I would like to raise is the question a girl at the debate asked and consequently sparked the debate on language: How do women claim back the word "woman" so that it no longer carries negative connotations, so we no longer are the punchline of sexist jokes? Same with feminist? I guess this goes onto another point: how do we get them to listen? (whoever "they" are?)
Baby steps and social media. Tweet about it, blog about it, write a status about it, write it on your forehead, take a selfie and Instagram it. Get the message out there; a message that says "All I want is to be treated as a human being, regardless of my gender" - or something similar.

It's 2015, people have been fighting for women's rights for well over a 100 years. Why must it take longer than a century? Why must progressive social reform take so long? How can people even think that feminism doesn't apply to them? Why does the world think it can function without women? Or get away with paying them less? Systematically oppressing them?
It's something I will never understand but always fight for.

Being a woman was not something I chose. But wishing I was a man is the easy way out.
I'll keep calling you out on your sexist bullshit. I'll keep voting for people who have women's rights at the heart of their manifesto (or at least the existence of it). I'll keep promoting women and their achievements. I'll keep celebrating mine and other's womanhood. I'll keep educating people on women's rights and feminist. I'll always be a trouble maker.

IS there a problem with reading biography?

Some interesting thoughts about reading biography came to me today.
Previously at university, I had been told that reading a poet's life in their poems was limiting to your reading of the text and that there is this thing called IMAGINATION that some people can use. Who knew?

I did. So I tried not to limit myself to just reading what I knew about the poet in their piece. But it's so HARD. When you know Sylvia Plath killed herself its difficult to detach yourself from the knowledge of that and not read 'Lady Lazerus' to be Plath talking about and essentially planning her next suicide attempt. Does it make the poem more heart-wrenching knowing that her third attempt was successful? It does for me. But maybe I'd have a different opinion without that knowledge. I can't delete knowledge so yeah, tantrum.

When I read Plath extensively for like two days (WARNING: that is only for the mentally stable. And even then, make sure you have a loved one near by for cuddles.), I realised that, yeah, it's not great to limit myself to just one reading of a poem. It also doesn't do Plath any justice as a writer. 

I was pretty sure Plath had a solid relationship with her dad but 'Daddy' screams daddy-problems, but then there's this argument that maybe Plath was just angry at her father for dying? Seems legitimate but that means you have to have prior knowledge of her father dying. 

This was a woman who wrote a hella long poem about tulips - she is not a tulip, so it's clearly not about her, right?

WRONG. As per usual in this bloody place. (Again, WARNING: don't come to university thinking you know stuff, because you don't. You just don't.)

Today in my Twentieth Century American Literature lecture, the lecturer stood up at the front of the classroom (small module) and shat all over everything I knew. 

He said that the line "who threw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism" in Allen Ginsberg's poem 'Howl' was private and that you needed prior knowledge of Ginsberg's friend Carl Solomon (whom the poem is dedicated to) because then you would know that Solomon did throw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism and then you would understand that line and not think that Ginsberg was just on drugs (which is was, if you EVEN READ any biography of his GOD DAMMIT). 

Basically, your understanding of 'Howl' is limiting if you don't have a brief knowledge of Ginsberg and his fellow Beat poets such as Neil Cassidy (because then you wouldn't understand the "N.C, the secret hero of these poems" reference) and Jack Kerouac, etc. 

Does this mean that NOT reading biography limits your reading? But then aren't you assuming that these great minds such as Plath and Ginsberg are just writing about their lives which is really easy and we could all do it and hey we all DO do it because I tweet like twice a day so I'm basically a poet? 

I don't even know, I need a nap. 

People bang on about the problem with reading biography; there are thousands of essays and books on it and I'm sure there are discussions everyday in one part of the world or another, but if someone writes a confessional poem, MUST we detach ourselves from the author?

I guess this goes into the realm of authorship and the questioning of its existence. So what if the author's intention is for an audience to read it as a parallel to their life? Does that mean we HAVE to read it like that? Where does that unwritten rule originate? 

This arguably leads to yet another debate of approaching texts differently. Is that the right thing to do? Is there a right thing to do?

I guess what I want to add to this ongoing discussion is that yeah, ok, there will never be a wrong reading if you read it straight from the text, but what if that text has no other meaning that what the poet meant it to mean? If you find another one, great, but what does that leave you with? A point that no one else really understands? It's basically all interpretation which I have always flourished in but literature at this level suggests that there is definitely no right answer and even the creator of the text is wrong once it leaves the realm of said creator. 

Art may be what you make of it, but sometimes people just need answers.

Conclusion: this discussion sparks more questions than it answers, which is basically university in a sentence.